Theories and Misinterpretations/No educational value
Despite being branded as an "educational" programme, several people are convinced that Boohbah features no discernable educational value to speak of. Analyses For a further explanation to most of the topics below, check out PBS Parents' essay on the show's supposed educational values. Lack of dialogue There are noticeably very few words and dialogue used throughout Boohbah - the voices of excited children shouting out the show's title (treated as a magic word within certain parts of each episode) and the characters' names, the narrator heard during the "Storyworld" segments, a group of children declaring the "gift" they bring into the Boohzone as a "present for the Storypeople", and aforementioned children voices calling out the word "Booh!" in order to send the Boohbahs into action. Every onscreen character on the show does not speak. The most commonly seen characters, the Boohbahs, have no mouths, and to communicate, they instead make numerous noises; some of them are squeaking and squealing noises, while some of them sound strikingly a lot like flatulence. The Storypeople have mouths, but are also similarly mute - their arrivals and emotions are expressed by pantomime and complementary music and sound effects. Only Little Dog Fido is capable of making any noises; but obviously, he communicates by barking. According to the essay linked above, viewers are encouraged to ask or tell their peers about what is going on in each segment - whether it be how the Boohbahs move, the events going on in Storyworld, or what could happen next - and encourage them to come up with more stories. Exercise The primary focus of Boohbah is to get viewers at home up and moving. The Boohbahs are, again, the characters that are most demonstrative of this topic - they get out of bed filled with energy, spend the first half of the show doing an (admittedly simple) exercise, and when the viewers return to their world from Storyworld, perform a more complex and more active dance. Despite this theme being very common in each episode, most people are unaware of this and call Boohbah "brainwashing", "inappropriate", "creepy", etc. Sentiments like these are so common that the last few DVDs have a logo deliberately encouraging viewers to "get [The Couch And On Your Feet|off [your couch and on your feet]]". To pad the show out to a thirty-minute timeslot, the PBS version of the show adds in a segment called "Look What I Can Do!", where assorted children perform an easy-to-mimic movement on a rainbow-swirl circle. This segment is then followed by more scenes of the Boohbahs dancing, usually taken from the prior and next episodes. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/tvandradio/3613576/The-mother-of-all-Boohbahs.html According to British newspaper The Telegraph], before Boohbah went into production, Ragdoll veteran Nikky Smedley (best known as the actress who played Laa-Laa from Teletubbies) spent an entire year studying children's movement, and was involved with imitating these moves with a group of adults and another group comprised of children who were in the target demographic of the programme. These moves were then approved by various physical activity experts and performed during the show by either the Boohbahs or the children in the "Look What I Can Do!" segment. This aspect of the show is pushed heavily in much of its marketing, and almost all promotional events regarding Boohbah have focused on exercising.